Not A Gazelle
by WildBeastOwner
Summary: Molly is all alone on the island and it's killing her. Rated for language and suicide. Creepy.


Molly Griem watched the waves, lapping gently at the shore, unconsciously counting them. There was nothing to do on this crap-hole island in the middle of nowhere. She wrapped herself tightly in a blanket and shifted her attention to the clouds. Damn, she was bored. Or lonely, maybe that was it.

She nibbled on her finger nail, and thought about that. No one was talking to her. But no one ever had anyway. Everyone had ignored her and that's the way her cookie crumbled. Someone had hugged her when they burned the fuselage. _When they burned Ricky._ The words bit into her.

"They didn't burn Ricky. He died in the crash," she whispered into the blanket. Ricky had been her friend. He had been more than just that. He had had to go to the bathroom, but never made it. _Fuck you, Ricky_ she thought, wondering if he could hear her, _I hope you can see me. See where you left me._

She watched the people milling around on the beach. She had caught snippets of their conversation. The doctor and his girlfriend had found Charlie. Admittedly, Kate was not Jack's official girlfriend, but they were close enough to count. Compared to some people.

Molly wondered if anyone had found Claire, the one person who had spoken to Molly. Molly had been surprised to find someone who shared her passion for astrology on this god-forsaken rock.

Then, Molly wondered if it had been a coincidence that she had been enjoying Drive Shaft's _Oil Change _when the plane hit turbulence. It had been a gift from Ricky, the year they spent in Madagascar.

Molly was swept up in a wave of emotion when she remembered how much he had loved Madagascar. Ricky was fascinated by the cinnamon farming there and Molly had wanted to see the lemurs. Madagascar was the last pace they went before Australia. And here was Molly, alone in the North Pacific. She knew it was not fair.

_This is worse than my heroine detox, _she thought bitterly, _my Ricky detox. _He had saved her from that downward spiral in New York. Getting wasted at parties. Drinking into delirium. Waking up every morning to find she didn't know the name of the man next to her. Sleeping on park benches when she was too high to find her way home. But Ricky had seen the beautiful Molly hidden within and helped her. He invited her to come on his world adventure if she swore to stay clean. Molly had been in love, and she'd agreed.

And those six years, 16, when she'd first run away with him to 22, the age she was now, made Molly deliriously happy. She forgot her uncle and what he did to her. She forgot her parent's ignoring what he had done. She forgot the 15-year-old whore she had been. She forgot there had been a Molly Griem before Ricky.

And now she was, again, the no-Ricky Molly, trying to compensate for 6 years of virtual non-existence. Her desire for alcohol and heroine was so intense, she felt she'd never kicked the habit. She hardly slept, afraid that when she closed her eyes she would find her uncle's grinning face.

When it was night, on the island, she would sit alone at the edge of the fire's glow. One by one, the people around her would drop off to sleep, leaving her alone. Alone with the loneliness she feared. The forest would creak, and occasionally the monsters would roar. Somewhere in the jungle stalked the man who had tried to kill Charlie, who had kidnapped Claire. Somewhere out there was the mad French woman. Somewhere out there were the 'Others' she knew existed. Molly would hold on to the ragged edges of her sanity, afraid to stay awake, afraid to sleep.

Sometimes, on those nights Molly would whisper poetry to herself, or fragments of stories. But there was one phrase that seemed to occur to her each night. It was a line from a book on animals of the safari. A guide she had read in Africa with Ricky. It said, "Frequently, gazelle on the plain will abandon herd mates who are ill, retarded or crippled. These animals are easy prey for many predators and this seems to be nature's own way of preventing defective genes from returning to the gene pool."

And when she thought of it, Molly would whisper it to herself. It was her mantra, and she would whisper it into the wee hours of night, until her voice cracked from talking and her throat burned.

Sitting there alone on the beach, watching the clouds, all alone, Molly wondered again if that was why Ricky had left her alone._ Fuck you, Ricky,_ she thought angrily up at him, _if I could kill you…_

But she could not, because Ricky was dead. _I'll never forgive_ _what you did._

Molly began to wonder if she believed in afterlife. Was there a heaven? Or did you stay in limbo? Did she believe in reincarnation? Or maybe it was more complicated than that, or maybe when you died you were really just dead. She looked upward again. Was Ricky up there?

She dug in her suitcase and pulled out her diary and lucky purple pen.

Walt ran up the trail as fast as he could, tugging Vincent along behind him. He burst out onto the clearing.

"Jack! Locke!" His voice sounded girlish even to his own ears as he screamed. He ran towards the caves. He knew he was hysterical, but he couldn't help it. It was Kate who came first to his screams.

"What happened?"

"The girl, on the beach," he started to sob. Kate grabbed his shoulders, the most maternal display she could exhibit.

"Blood, lots of it," he choked between sobs. Kate ran back to the cave she had been in.

"Jack," she yelled, "Come quick, something happened at the beach." He responded to her summons immeadiatly, followed by Micheal, Hurley and someone Walt did not recognize.

Wlat did his best to retell the story for Jack. The body, the blood… Jack tore off to the beach, Kate and Micheal behind..

Molly was there, curled into a ball, drenched in her own blood, which poured profusely from her wrists. Jack dropped down onto his knees, knowing she was already dead.

"Did anyone know her?" he asked.

"She was with someone who died in the crash," Kate said, "but no one ever spoke to her, except for Claire."

Jack noticed a hunting knife held in her curled fingers, unmistakably Locke's.

"It was suicide," he confirmed, miserably. He picked up a journal, laying a few feet from her still figure. The pages were splattered with blood, but readable.

The book was opened to an entry that read, _Fuck you, Ricky. I'm not a gazelle. I'm coming…_


End file.
